Before the nitpickers arrive, some books still sit on shelves in dusty, musty, boxy warehouses waiting for shipment to a bookstore or your house....
Books don’t exist until you buy them
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J.S. Morin
Worlds We Just Need More Of
Fantasy fans are nothing if not obsessed with worldbuilding. No one makes it through thousands of pages of text without becoming invested in the...
Sick of Superheroes?
By now, most people have probably forgotten about it, but for a brief period in 2017, DC had a superhero comedy starring Vanessa Hudgens and Alan...
Year 9 of my 5-10 Year Plan for Overnight Success
Well, 2021 was a year. Frankly, it was not the year I (or anyone else, safe to say) was expecting, and if I’d bought 2021 at a store, I’d be looking...
Is stubbornness a virtue?
Sometimes an idea is vast and complicated, sometimes it’s not. And often, that’s the problem keeping a concept from getting off the ground. There’s...
Tired of Good Always Winning?
Boss Monster is a game where you are the evil ruler of a stereotypical fantasy dungeon. You preside over a lair composed of cards you play, each...
Real estate without the “Real”
Back in 2019 (in the "Before" time), fed up with losing 5 months of the year to cold weather and snow, my wife and I decided to move cross country...
One Pill, Two Pill, Red Pill, Blue Pill
Well, with the new Matrix movie out (no spoilers at all, perfectly safe to continue), it’s time to revisit the red pill, blue pill debate.I’m going...
Hear the Drums, Fear the Game
If you know Jumanji, you probably get chills just reading that drum beat. For those who don’t, Jumanji is a 1995 comedic adventure movie starring...
Soldiers on Ice
Sometimes ideas come to us at the weirdest times. The middle of the night is all too common. In my house, we refer to a shower as "Brain Rain" for a...
The Only Fun Pandemics
The two classic responses to crises are avoidance and action. If you don’t want to hear any more about rampant diseases and what to do about them,...
In a Few Years, This Will Feel Normal
Once upon a time, there were games you played with rocks on a table. Then carved pieces on a table. Eventually, people developed little cardboard...
Choose Your Own Fantasy Race
After magic, the most defining feature of fantasy fiction is the inclusion of non-human races. While you CAN have a fantasy without them, the...
Cowboy Bebop != Cowboy Bebop
Spoiler alert: Cowboy Bebop (Netflix and original animated versions)OK, so I’ve watched all of Cowboy Bebop, both the original and Netflix versions....
Fun idea, wrong outlet
Time to dust another idea off from the old scrap heap and take a look at why it’s still there. Our latest autopsy subject: Master of the Clouds.What...
An RPG you have time to play
Sleeping Gods is a different sort of RPG. Or board game. Or both. See, this is where it gets a little hybridy. It’s a board game with a map...
The Rosie / Terminator Continuum
Imagine a future where you wake up to a freshly brewed coffee and the morning news, provided by your personal robotic assistant. You dodge deftly...
Who’s Your Crew?
A starship is just a hull with some engines and maybe guns. It’s the crew inside that makes it truly special. Zipping back and forth across the...
Futurama, but in the past
While movie theaters have been shut down and people staying home, Netflix has become the heartbeat of the entertainment world (and maybe it has been...
“What If…?” but for Star Wars
OK, so all of us have some free time on our hands now and then. Even before “What If…?” became a big thing on Disney+, I’d had a version in my mind...
You had me at lightsabers
Ask any child from the Star Wars era whether they’d like to play with a lightsaber, and it’s a good bet you’ll get an enthusiastic "YES!" Yet from...
Your new genes won’t be denim
Science news is an endless drumbeat of “on the verge” when it comes to gene therapy. It’s almost become background noise by now. In and of...
Wizarding Real Estate
Fantasy stories take us to wondrous places, whisking us off to the impossible, the breathtaking, occasionally the terrifying. Crystalline forests,...
Bill & Ted’s Excellent Sequel
When I first heard that there was going to be a third movie in the Bill & Ted “franchise,” I cringed. Hollywood has been awash for years in the...
